Movies about sadness are inherently movies about happiness, too, because any attempt to deconstruct grief or depression must also address what it means to not be these things — in other words, to be fulfilled. So to describe

Beginners

as a film about a man coping with the loss of his father and, in turn, his own shortcomings in life isn’t doing it justice. To say it’s about love is more accurate, but trite.

Perhaps it’s best to go with the obvious:

Beginners

is about beginnings.

In the case of Hal (Christopher Plummer), who comes out of the closet at age 78, four years before he will die of cancer, it’s the start of a new life that’s true to his identity. For his son Oliver (Ewan McGregor), who falls in love with a French actress named Anna (Mélanie Laurent), it’s the start of life without his father and the beginning of his first honest relationship with a woman.

Writer-director Mike Mills (

Thumbsucker

), who based this story largely on his own personal experiences, starts simple: “This is 2003. This is what the sun looks like, and the stars; this is the president.” Then we’re taken back to 1955, when Oliver’s parents were married, and see images of that sun, those stars, that president, along with nature and love and telephones of this era.

It may seem like an over-simplified or perhaps random way of contextualizing, but it reflects that very human way of holding on to the past — grasping at objects, symbols, images, memories and so forth until they start to blur with, or even become part of, one’s present landscape.

Flitting around between past and present is a common occurrence in

Beginners

, mostly so audiences can get a better sense of how Oliver’s relationship with his father informs the one he’s pursuing with Anna, whom he meets at a costume party — he’s dressed as Freud, she may or may not be Charlie Chaplin but in any case has laryngitis, meaning she can communicate only via hand gestures or doodles in her notepad. At the end of the night, they remove their wigs (and other things) together.

Laurent, best known for her role in

Inglourious Basterds

and on track to become the next Charlotte Gainsbourg, is utterly captivating here, making even a simple request to pass her camisole feel entirely soul-stirring. McGregor is endearing with his wonderfully soft-spoken charm and sense of humour, attempting to impress his new girl with dates that revolve around roller skating and taco trucks and rebellious acts of graffiti — except that he spray-paints words that evoke historical consciousness rather than the usual expletives. At least Anna likes nerds.

It goes without saying, of course, that Plummer turns in a spectacular performance, whether he’s rewriting Jesus’ death to make it more palatable or calling up his son in the middle of the night to ask what kind of music goes, “Nn-tss, nn-tss, nn-tss” (house music, it turns out); his pivotal line, “I don’t just want to be theoretically gay, I want to do something about it,” is delivered with pure conviction.

But it’s Oliver’s equally succinct observation later in the film that strikes the deepest chord, when he says, “Our good fortune allows us to feel a sadness our parents didn’t have time for.”

Mills isn’t arguing that modern depression is a luxurious indulgence, per se, but that we should be thankful for the chance to really explore the bitter depths of grief when it strikes. Because ultimately, the more time we spend trying to comprehend tragedy, the more gratitude — and perhaps even that elusive sense of happiness — we’ll begin to feel.